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Pitt Students Learn from Experience

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“I learned things that I wouldn’t have been able to learn in a classroom environment,” Mauricio Achata (LAW, MBA ’08) says of the independent-study project he completed while a student at Pitt.

While unpaid internships can be invaluable, there is nothing like being paid to learn. A major gift from Pitt Business alumnus James B. Tafel—who owns 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense—created a Pitt endowment supporting unpaid interns. Achata used his to work with a pharmaceutical company in North Carolina.

Each term, teams of masters and undergraduate Pitt Business students participate in Consulting Field Projects, working with such clients as Westinghouse Electric Company’s Nuclear Services Operation and Thomson Reuters. Global consulting firm McKinsey & Company leads student workshops advised by Pitt faculty.

The project’s final requirement is that each team participate in the annual McKinsey Cup Competition, in which judges evaluate students’ project summaries, findings, and recommendations based on analytical rigor and content.

Business and engineering students traveled to Palermo, Italy, where they provided recommendations on energy-saving techniques and sustainable efforts to a leading transplantation center. The trip was sponsored by UPMC and the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership.

John W. Swanson School of Engineering student Jared J. O’Connell was recognized as the 2010 Pitt Co-op Student of the Year for his work with the Hershey Company. Of Pitt undergraduate engineering students, 40 percent participate in the co-op program, which matches students with full-time assignments in engineering, chemistry, and computer science.

Through the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) Fellows Program, students travel internationallly to provide research assistance to scholars working on Carnegie Endowment’s projects such as non-proliferation, democracy building, Middle East political reform, and international security. The program is one of several opportunites available to students through the Office of Experiential Learning at Pitt's Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.